De Phillippi: “Real Honor” to Complete BMW LMDh Rollout

Photo: BMW M Motorsport

Connor De Phillippi said it was a “real honor” to be tasked with being the first driver to complete the first laps in the BMW M Hybrid V8.

De Phillippi and fellow BMW M Motorsport factory pilot Sheldon van der Linde took turns in the German manufacturer’s new LMDh car during the car’s initial rollout on July 25 at Varano in Italy.

“We haven’t been at that level of motorsport in quite some time now,” De Phillippi told Sportscar365. “The anticipation of the LMDh car has been quite high since last year.

“We’ve all been very vocal about getting a shot to try and be part of the program. So when I had the opportunity to go do the rollout, I was obviously over the moon about it.

“Although it’s still early days and it wasn’t anything performance-wise, just to be the guy that got to drive it with all of the board members from BMW there and for it to roll on track the first day without any issues was pretty impressive.

“With so many new systems — obviously with having the hybrid system and internal combustion engine and having those two on a race car — BMW has never had those in combination ever.

“The fact that they were able to pull from their experience from all different types of motorsport and to have it all go smoothly was really cool to see.”

The 29-year old Californian said the gravity of the experience didn’t sink in until he flew home from Europe.

“Being the first guy to go do it was a real honor,” De Phillippi said.

“That’s something that some guys never get a chance to do in their entire career and to do it once is already an incredible thing.

“I don’t think it ever happens twice in a driver’s career.

“To do it once and have that under the belt as something I had experienced in motorsport is pretty cool.”

While having completed two additional days of running at the Dallara-owned circuit to get “everything functioning,” De Phillippi said his previous LMP3 experience helped him hit the ground running in the car.

“I think driving the LMP3 car made me feel really comfortable right away,” he said. “It can initially feel claustrophobic if I hadn’t done that last year.

“Comfort-wise, I was very comfortable in the car. Varano is a small track so you can’t really speak much about that.

“That’s the most power I ever had underneath my right foot. I can say that was pretty cool.”

Barcelona, Aragon Tests Planned Prior to Heading Stateside

BMW has earmarked testing at both Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and Motorland Aragon prior to heading Stateside for the bulk of the running.

According to Team RLL technical and race operations director Brandon Fry, the test car is scheduled to arrive in the U.S. in early September.

It will be the first race car be delivered to RLL’s new 100,000 square-foot headquarters in Indianapolis.

RLL has been working hand-in-hand with development team RMG, BMW M Motorsport and Dallara personnel in building up and operating the initial European testing.

“We had several guys the [rollout],” Fry told Sportscar365. “We had race engineers there, performance engineers. Everything’s getting done hand-in-hand.

“Until the car comes over here, we’ll have guys over there supporting all the testing, the build.

“There’s a lot of challenges because it’s a very complicated car. All of the manufacturers are finding that in their own time.

“It was a positive rollout and things are moving along.”

Fry indicated that BMW will be part of several group tests with fellow LMDh manufacturers in September, including a 24-hour endurance test at Sebring International Raceway, leading up to the first IMSA-sanctioned test at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on Oct. 3-5.

“The manufacturers have been really good in that they’re all sharing each other’s plans,” he said.

“Earlier in the program there was, ‘This is what we want to do for testing.’ Then if you look at that versus what we are doing for testing — and we’re doing a lot of testing, don’t get me wrong — the dream plan and what we’re doing is very different.

“Tracks are very difficult to get on and the timeframe is really tight.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John